liminality and the royal we

Hunh. Today is my 13th wedding anniversary. I'm not really sure what to do with that since I am not really married anymore, except in the eyes of the state. I'm not uncomfortable where I am in this liminal state of commitment, but there is a certain awkwardness. I have trouble this time of year, when there are so many surface-y social chit chat sessions at holiday gatherings and such... how do I tell my stories? Is it "me" and "I" or if they are the older stories, are they "we" and "us" even though there is no current we. And then today. What do I do with myself today?

Leave it to my grandmother to point the way. She stayed over this weekend and at one point yesterday she casually said, "well, I'm not sending you an anniversary card this year." I told her that seemed quite appropriate, considering. Later, as I drove her home, she said, "I think it's good that you've found a way that works for you and you shouldn't have to bother with anyone fussing about how it is 'supposed' to be." Thanks, Grandma, that is a way better sentiment than I could get from any card.

Pant Wars

And now for something completely different...

I'm having a small war with my pants. Or maybe it is with pants makers. It all started a few weeks ago when I braved the mall on a mission to find talls for a tall friend. While there, the attentive sales people in Eddie Bauer spotted my cord lust and convinced me to try the "curvy" cut. While they are soft and lovely, curvy cuts apparently end at the top of my hip bones -- about a mile from waist. They also, well, curve around where I curve, so I'm feeling sort of extra out there. Where I am really struggling is in the lowness of the cut in the back. They are still a bit too big in the "waist" (for lack of a better term, since this top part of the pant is really no where near my waist!) and they are low, so when I bend or sit, unless I am careful: coin slot. Noooooooo. How do people live like this? I think the pants are kind of cute when I'm feeling cute (I notice I like them best right after I've been to the gym) and when I'm standing or walking, but sitting is strange and I find my self hiking them up a lot even though they are in no way too big for me.

Okay, so this is totally inane, but its been a long week and the drugs in my system are leaving me a bit hazy and the papers are still not graded... and so I'm thinking about my pants.

radio silence

It has been a long time since I've had anything to say on here, it seems. I think that is mainly because all I have wanted to say to internet-land for the last couple of weeks is, "OUCH!" What began with a strange pain/weakness in my right hip the morning I hopped out of bed to fly to California in mid-October has become a constant, painful companion of late. I recognize the patterns from chronic pain of the past... I'm struggling to focus, to do what I need to do, to get out of the house. I'm terrified that if I stop moving now, I'll stop moving for good.

Some progress with the doctors reveals that it is some damage happening to my L5 nerve root happening in my lower back that is sending the shooting pain and painful numbness down my right leg. My lower leg burns. Even my toes tingle painfully with numbness. Not surprisingly, I've maxed out on ibuprofen so that I can function a bit but by the time evening rolls around, I'm more often than not crawling off to bed whimpering. But then at some ugly hour (usually beginning with a 4 - or 5 if I am really lucky) I'm up, howling in pain. Really, I've found myself howling. I was actually screaming in my car the other day while stuck at a light on a 5 minute drive: the pain had flared up, I had to get out of the car, but I was stuck.

I've got some better drugs, but I'm not taking them now (4:40am) because it is my morning to drive the carpool for middle school. And then there are meetings. And a sizable stack of term papers that must be graded. I will, however, take the prednisone I started yesterday. Yesterday was a better day than I've had in a while, so maybe there is some hope but then the system is doing a crappy job of finding me a specialist to see and a place for physical therapy. There is much more waiting ahead of me. I call the doctor and wait. The nurse calls me back, but only half my questions are answered. So she goes back to the doctor and I wait. Then the referral is not clear, so the clerk has to find the doctor and I will wait some more.

In the meantime, I'm feeling somewhat paralyzed by my partial diagnosis (we now the nerve group but won't know how it is being impinged until I get the MRI next week). In the meantime, should I go to the gym? It feels okay when I am there, crappy after, then (after a nap) I generally feel better for the rest of the day. I have felt myself getting weaker, especially in the last two weeks, sometimes I'm shuffling when walking.... This terrifies me. Maybe the gym makes me feel better because I let myself think I am fighting the decline and confirms that I can still move. But what if I'm making it worse?

Half

When my children are with me, I am half full. To be connected with them, I feel very disconnected from the world of grown ups. I have little individual existence/identity. I often find myself not doing things I want/need to do (such as reading) and instead waiting for the next thing I need to do for them. And engaging with them involves a fair amount of negotiation, persuasion, cajoling... even for things they want to do. But we do connect, especially when they are with me for longer stretches. We had an interesting discussion about puberty in the car yesterday. Today we put the yard to bed for the season. But then they drop into legoland, a book, or a friend and I'm just waiting for the next thing I need to do and I feel the gulf between their world as kids and my adult status. I'm the one in charge. The one who makes money, buys food, makes plans, arranges transportation. makes the big decisions...

And when my children are gone and the world is a bit more about me, I am more like half empty. In those times, I am independent and the enormity of that is almost overwhelming. I feel like I waste large chunks of it. I should be riding my bike, writing my book, getting drunk, and kissing people. But I never seem to get that much out of it.

I'm feeling the frustration of neither situation feeling right. Both leave me so very tired. And I'm feeling at a loss as to how to fix it and find some sort of middle ground where the pieces of me fit together.

Go Team

Teaching a seminar with six students who are doing group-based research projects for community partners is pretty damn fun. Okay, there was a heapin' helpin' of anxiety-inducing work to set it up, but now that it is underway, I'm just having a blast. I've decided that this is because my relationship to them is markedly different than in most classes. I'm not there to present material. I'm not making up the assignments (well, I sort of did, but that was based on the needs of the community partners), and it doesn't even really look like I'm responsible for the deadlines (though I mostly am).

Rather than the "teacher," I am a resource. I am a mentor. I should be that for all my classes, but I'm not. I think the difference is partly that there is someone bigger and scarier than me or their grades out there - the community partners. The goal is also bigger -- it is not just about them as individuals and their grade. It is about the projects, projects that have a purpose in the real world. Whatever its source, there is a real "team" feeling to our meetings. They ask my advice, they share their anxieties, they offer to help, they get excited... and they think I'm on their side. And I am.

Step one: kill the parents

I watched "Star Wars: A New Hope" with the kids last night. Like so many good adventures that kids are into, the first step is to off the parents or guardians (it is of course Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru who must fall prey to the storm troopers in order for late adolescent Luke to follow his destiny). Virtually every book E reads (she's big into fantasy-adventure books) and many of O's involve the tragic end of the 'rents. It makes me more than a little uncomfortable when we read or discuss these together. So asked E the other day what she thought of this, if she had noticed the trend... Yes, I was secretly hoping she would tell me that it was okay and I'm so cool and adventure-friendly that I absolutely must accompany her as she retrieves the lost amulet from some ancient land or whatever. But she didn't. She said, "of course they have to die, parents don't let you do cool stuff."

Not you again!

As I was headed from one side of campus to the other yesterday, I passed a student I'd had in class several years ago. My first thought was "jeez, is he STILL here?"

You see, he had not been a particularly pleasant student to have. He had something to say about everything -- and his not having done the reading, his comments not being connected to the time or topic we were talking about, did not slow him down in the least. My lecturing did not slow him down either. He would raise his hand over and over again, but if not recognized within ten seconds, he would jump in and just start talking. I fell into the habit of lecturing with my hand up (in a "talk to the hand" sort of way) in order to let him know that I saw him but that I was not giving up the floor.

As you can imagine, the other students came to despise him. They were wonderful about it though, they learned to call him out for not having read (I'm so proud!) asking where he saw that (silly)idea in the reading and showing him where in the reading there was evidence that totally contradicted the idiotic thing he had just said. Anyway, we all muddled through and I heard tales of him going on to torture my colleagues in a similar manner and then I went on sabbatical and stories about him faded... but there he was yesterday. And I successfully dodged him. Whew.

But later it occurred to me that it doesn't really matter. I can avoid him on campus and hope he doesn't show up in any more of my classes, but there will be others. He is a type... and just like I have the sardonic student, the charming smart student who doesn't do work up to their potential, the jesus-loving student who wants to convert me, the diligent but shy student almost every term, the student with no sense of humor, etc., etc., I will have this student -- the one who talks too much but has nothing to say and is completely socially clueless again. The super annoying student from my class last fall, the one who I thought for sure would have flunked out by now, even showed up in my on-line class this term and has already asked for an extension. When I saw him on the class list, I wished him gone, but it's same deal. If it not him, there would be someone else to fill this slot. There must be one student in every class who begs for extensions and never actually does the work. Sigh. Remind me again that I am supposed to see each of my students as a unique and beautiful snowflake...